He turned a lifelong love of science into retirement dream

Tuesday

Don Salvatore, 66, of Pembroke retired as a science educator at the Museum of Science in Boston after 38 years. He loved his job and has turned retirement into a continuing productive adventure.

PEMBROKE – Growing up in the Idlewell neighborhood of Weymouth, Don Salvatore loved science and the natural world. He played along the Fore River and after he graduated from Weymouth High School in 1969 and earned a bachelor's degree in biology from Northeastern University in 1975. He eventually found a dream job as a science educator at the Museum of Science in Boston.

"I had a great time; it was a wonderful job – it was like play," he said.

He stayed at the museum for 38 years, moving to part-time nine years ago so he could follow some other interests. From home, he continued to run a citizen science project called Firefly Watch which he helped to found in 2008. He also went in on Sundays and gave the museum's public demonstrations on lightning, fireflies and other natural science topics. Last summer, he decided "the time had come to give it all up."

Salvatore, 66, had already started putting a retirement plan in place that serves him and others well. It is a careful blend of his many interests. He launched his own nature programming business, Backyard Biology, giving nature talks on several topics, including bees, fireflies, other backyard plants and animals and a set of photographs of spiders and other creatures he took with electron microscopes at the science museum. He speaks to garden clubs, science centers, senior centers and in schools.

And he is working with Mass Audubon's South Shore Sanctuaries, which now has the Firefly Watch project. Citizen scientists across the country count fireflies and report the numbers. This summer, he will be doing some Duxbury Beach programs for Mass Audubon.

"It keeps me busy, happy, doing things I like to do," he said.

Most recently it has also led to a pursuit of solitary bees.

I had never heard of solitary bees – the ones that are not honeybees or attached to nests and that buzz around gardens by themselves – until I met Salvatore at the Scituate Garden Club's annual plant sale in May. He and his wife, Louise, had a table set up with information about how to encourage more solitary bees to come to backyards and home gardens to help pollinate. He also had some solitary bee boxes that he had made for sale.

He self-published a book called "Backyard Biology." He runs a school program for the North and South Watershed Association in Norwell for fifth graders in 30 schools from 12 towns. The students learn about how to keep water clean, about recycling and some go on field trips to a herring run or local water treatment plant.

"I get to learn about and teach all branches of science," he said. "There is always something new and fascinating to learn and that is a thrill, too."

Soft-spoken, with a quiet passion for his subject matter, he said, "I can't sing, I can't act, this is my way of getting that kick of being in front of an audience. When you can see they are all paying attention and are really interested in what you have to say, that's such a high.

"Also knowing I am helping in my own little way to make this a better place by teaching people about science and the environment and why it matters to them and how important it is in the world we have a more science-literate population."

At Northeastern University, in the student work coop program, his first job was to dive into the giant fish tank at the New England Aquarium and fed the sharks and moray eels. As a college student he also worked at the Blue Hills Trailside Museum in Milton. After graduating, his first full-time job was as the assistant director of a very small children's museum in Dartmouth, which gave him enough experience to land a job as oceanography instructor at the Roanoke Valley Science Center in Virginia. That led to the job at the Museum of Science in 1979.

His other hobbies include sailing his small sailboat, Melonseed, made by Roger Crawford on the South River in Marshfield.

He and his wife have lived in Pembroke for 23 years and before that in Rockland. In the next year, they plan to move to a retirement community in southern Maine. He has created a retirement model that they can take with them. To contact Salvatore, email salvatore.dv@gmail.com.

Reach Sue Scheible at sscheible@patriotledger.com, 617-786-7044, or The Patriot Ledger, P.O. Box 699159, Quincy 02269-9159. Read her Good Age blog on our website. Follow her on Twitter @ sues_ledger.

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